ADVENTURES IN NURSING

THAT “OTHER” INSTRUCTOR

I don’t remember her name, and that’s okay with me.  She was a substitute instructor my clinical group was subjected to during our month-long summer clinical at the hospital.  Thank God we only had to deal with her for one day.  She was just plain old rude!  She seemed to think it was her personal mission to whip us all into shape in one day.  We were not impressed.

A little backstory to this is that my then-fiancee had a daughter who had already been through the two-year program in the class one year ahead of us.  However, she hadn’t been able to attend her summer clinical, since she was busy having a baby during that time.  Consequently, she and I found ourselves in the same clinical group that summer.  Once she got through that, she was eligible to graduate.  She was most eager to finally put it all behind her, and begin her career. 

Well, Mrs. Rude Instructor seemed to zero right in on this perfectly lovely young woman.  Lee (not her real name) had long blonde hair, which she wore up in a ponytail as required by the program.  She did, however, have corkscrew curls that hung loose on each side.  Well, Mrs. RI was not gonna let that go by unnoticed.  Before we even hit the floor, she informed Lee, with a flick of her pen on the aforementioned curls, that “those have to go.”  There would be no loose tendrils on HER watch, by gum and by golly!  Lee’s face turned bright red, and I was thinking, “Oh, sh**, here we go!”  I had witnessed Lee’s temper when she believed she had a righteous rant, and I was concerned that Mrs. RI was about to witness it, too.  Good for you, Lee!  You didn’t let loose on her, even though she probably had it coming. 

Mrs. RI was like those pesky little yappy dogs that latch on to your ankles and won’t let go, no matter what.  She dogged each of us all that day, watching and waiting for someone to screw up.  She criticized every tiny little thing she could find.  I seem to remember getting grilled about why I wasn’t wearing my nurse’s cap, which was required.  You’ll hear more about that in a future blog.  We were so happy to see that day end.

I really don’t know why people have to act like that.  I’m all for making sure that students are well trained before being turned loose on the world of nursing.  I don’t, however, think it’s necessary to just be a bitch to people who are trying their best to learn what they need to know – students who want to learn, and want to do things properly, and want to be proud of their skills and abilities.  The program was tough enough without throwing catty instructors who seem to have their own agendas into the mix.

Here’s the dress code for our clinical experiences:

 

1-     our nails had to be short, no nail polish;

2-   no dangly earrings, no visible necklaces, plain wedding bands only (no stones, no engraving, et cetera), a utilitarian watch with a second hand;

3-   our regulation uniform dress with the much-hated blue pinafore attached for the ladies; our nursing cap; white stockings and regulation nursing shoes;

4-   as mentioned above, hair longer than collar length had to be worn up WITH NO LOOSE HANGY-DOWN CURLS! 

Points were taken off our clinical grades for anything less than all of the above.  I get the concept, but many real-life nurses don’t follow these rules, obviously.  I was actually amazed when I began my career at how some nurses dress.  I continued to keep my nails short and unpolished.  The few times I wore even slightly dangly earrings, I regretted it.  If I didn’t lose an earring in some patient’s bed or clothing, someone with dementia would latch on to that sucker and convince me dangly earrings were not a good idea at work.

I don’t know how many hundreds of times I worked with nurses whose hair was hanging all in their faces, were wearing all manner of multiple rings on both hands, and bracelets on both arms, and necklaces right out there in plain sight, just begging for some unruly patient to grab hold and try to choke the life out of them.  It happens, and it’s not much fun!

I seem to have digressed from my original topic, but you’ll have that when I get up on my soapbox, which I usually carry around with me.  My point, if you’ve been able to follow this at all, is that nursing school isn’t really much like the real world of nursing at all.  Some of the rules of nursing school seem to be fairly arbitrary and perhaps even unnecessary, but we had to abide by them or pay the consequences. 

By the way, B and I, and our friend R, threw those damned blue pinafores in the bonfire at our graduation party.  That was one of the highlights of my life.